How to Make Do with a Small Oven

A small oven—one that measures only 24 inches wide instead of the usual 30—shouldn't cramp your style as a cook. You may not be able to roast a monster turkey and bake mountains of cookies at the same time, sueatmo says on Chowhound, but a small oven can do almost everything else a bigger one can.

A great workaround that offers even more flexibility than a single huge oven is to get a countertop oven as a backup. A countertop convection microwave is what greygarious recommends—you can use it for baked goods in convection mode, for nuking leftovers, or cycle between the two. "That's a handy thing for ... roasting a chicken in half the time and still getting the crispy skin of an oven-roasted bird," greygarious says.

Small ovens actually have built-in advantages. SeaKoz finds a 24-incher better than a larger one for roasting a 20-pound turkey, since a small oven gets up to temperature much more quickly. And masha has even roasted a 24-pound bird in a 24-inch oven with no problem, but has one important piece of advice: Don't buy roasting pans with protruding side handles. Don't forget to take along a tape measure when shopping for cookware!